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A Father’s Death

First Sgt. Charles M. King was killed in action near Baghdad on Oct. 14, 2006, after an improvised explosive device detonated under his armored vehicle. He left behind his partner of eight years, Dana Canedy, a sen­ior editor at The New York Times, and their 6-month-old son, Jordan. He also left behind a 200-page journal containing thoughts, remembrances and pieces of advice meant to guide his son through life in the event that King “did not make it home” from Iraq. Canedy has used this journal as the basis of a memoir, layering her own recollections alongside King’s. The result, “A Journal for Jordan,” is a hauntingly beautiful account of a family fractured by war.

Canedy began the project only months after King’s death, writing a piece about Jordan’s journal that appeared in The Times in January 2007. Like the article, the memoir is filled with vivid and heartbreaking details of the man she lost. Canedy finds herself talking about King “in the present tense” because “my mind has not yet recalibrated itself.” Afraid her memories of him will slip away, she lingers on the traits only a lover would notice. The way King laughed, the scar on his knee, the complex interplay between his personal and professional duties — Canedy describes these features with such care that one feels Charles King is alive and breathing. Her talent at evoking character makes the account of King’s life and death not simply a story about the injustice of war, but a project in resurrection. Canedy allows King to come alive for her son and, to our benefit, for us.

Her ability to do so is in large part due to her warm and accessible persona on the page. Portraying herself as “loquacious, assertive and impatient” as well as “obstinate and impulsive,” the author brings light and air to what might otherwise be a claustrophobic tale. Canedy and King were opposites in many ways. She was career-oriented and extroverted, while he tended to be artistic and shy. At King’s funeral, Canedy learned that he had a “long list of military medals, 56 in all,” including “two Bronze Stars, a Purple Heart and 11 Army Achievement Medals.” Canedy didn’t know King had been so impressively decorated. He had been too modest to tell her.

Photo

Charles M. King and his son, Jordan.Credit
Courtesy of Dana Canedy

Despite his many admirable qualities, Canedy refuses to portray King “as a saint.” He had flaws, of course — most pointedly, that “he put his military service ahead of his family.” In the journal, King wrote that “enlisting in the Army was one of the best decisions” he had ever made. He had “no regrets.” Still, he had long suffered for such dedication. “The sight of blood gave him flashbacks,” Canedy writes. “Chemical sprays he received during the first gulf war left permanent splotches on his arms. For years he was haunted by images of combat, unable to speak about them even to me.”

Some of the most gripping moments occur when Canedy uses her skills as a reporter to interview those who witnessed the attack, reconstructing the events from multiple accounts. She received conflicting versions of King’s death, and quickly learned that the military often sanitizes the story.

She also came to understand the intense loyalty and admiration King’s fellow soldiers felt for him, as well as the suffering inflicted on Iraqis. In the confused aftermath of the explosion that killed King, American snipers fired on a van that appeared to be fleeing the scene of the attack. Upon looking inside, they found “no weapons or explosives.” One of the passengers was a woman five months pregnant, alive but “shot in the abdomen.” Canedy was never able to determine what happened to this woman, although “the thought of her baby dying from a gunshot wound before he or she ever took a breath haunts me.”

“I could not be at your birth because of the war,” King wrote to Jordan. One cannot help imagining the endless list of events this man will miss in the life of his only son. Canedy understands that one day Jordan will want to know the reasons for his father’s absence. He will want to know why we were in Iraq, what was achieved there and who was responsible for the death of his father. Canedy believes “there will be no easy answers” when that day comes. Perhaps his mother’s important memoir will be the place to start.

A JOURNAL FOR JORDAN

A Story of Love and Honor

By Dana Canedy

Illustrated. 279 pp. Crown Publishers. $25.95

Danielle Trussoni, the author of “Falling Through the Earth: A Memoir,” is working on her first novel.

A version of this review appears in print on , on Page BR10 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: A Father’s Death. Today's Paper|Subscribe